Sonny Liston's standing as an ATG if he got his title shot earlier?

Thankfully we can watch these fights and not rely on questionable Liston takes.

 

Ike I would outwork this guy

 

Initially, Sonny was strictly speaking ingo’s challenger not Floyds.

Believe it or not, January 1959 Ingo was #1 challenger to Floyds title and Sonny was #10. Liston was behind men like Harris and Brian London who Floyd defended against.

After Ingo beat Floyd, the Former champion was installed as #1 challenger and locked into an immediate rematch with the new champion. Sonny was #4 by then & behind Henry cooper and Zora Folley who Liston had not fought yet.

Sonny eventually made it to #1 challenger in April 1960 but Patterson was already getting his rematch in June ahead of Sonny.

Once Patterson was champion again, Liston remained #1 challenger until his suspension from the ratings for the impersonation of a policeman arrest in May 1961.

The third fight between Floyd and Ingo took place in March 1961. Ingo was rated # 4 behind cooper, Mache, Folley and Sonny but had a immediate contracted rematch clause to challenge for the tithe he had just lost.

 

What’s the best one stop source (if there is one) for viewing historical ratings for due context?

Or is such information something that has to be piece mealed together from multiple sources over time?

Just a tidbit. I rewatched Liston vs Bethea 6 Aug 58. Announcer Jack Drees (great commentator btw) noted that as at that time,
Zora Folley was the # 1 contender. Is that perfectly correct?

Drees also advised that Folley nominated Bethea as his toughest opponent to date and that Bethea had knocked Folley down in their fight.

As per boxrec, I see Folley and Bethea fought twice - first on 3 Dec 56 and second time on 9 Jan 1957.

Not sure which bout Bethea scored the KD but notably, Folley won both bouts only by SD.

Liston made quite a statement in the Bethea fight given the brutal manner in which he despatched a fighter of proven durability and one who had achieved measures of success against the current # 1 contender.

An added treat was seeing both the Baer bros and Joe Louis enter the ring and greet both fighters before the bout.

Interesting to see the better known, upper echelon fighters of yesteryears “smaller” HW era not looking so small in there.

Liston only weighed about 206 lb but he looked right: strong, powerful,and notably fast of hands, putting his punches together beautifully and accurately. Sonny really looked the goods.

 

It is. So what was the missing context?

 

When Floyd. became champ for the second time, 8 former champs had tried the feat. They went 0-11 in their attempts. Think about that for a second.

 

I would say the NBA quarterly Ratings on boxrec.

 

Sweet. Thanks. Boxrec hasn’t been playing nice lately though. Hopefully it’s in better shape now.

 

That would be incorrect.

 

The fact of the matter is that Rademacher, a guy without a single pro fought fought for Patterson's title.

As for Jackson being seen as the only threat, well let's just admit he wasn't seen as much of a threat at all. Patterson was a red hot favorite.

Brian London also rose from the bottom of the pack.

Liston could have easily got an earlier shot but Cus was hardly trying to line him up.

 

Ever dependable as always with cutting edge info from the time!!!! Also some nice extras mate.

I have a feeling you put all this forward ages ago which is probably where chok is getting his info from. Probably caught out the first time. We know we have to check!

 

So what exactly made Rademacher "ready for a title shot"? What "building up" did he have? Why was Rademacher "viable"? Was he looking magnificent or like a future champ?

Pray tell what made London "viable" in mid 59 when he had lost his previous fight??????? Liston was rated by both organisations and had beaten a top 10 contender at the time. He was also on a 16-17 fight winning streak.

The bottom line is that Liston could easily have gotten a title shot if the champ and his team were semi willing. Lets not pretend he couldn't have. One doesn't have to force a title shot to get one as we've seen dozens and dozens of times across many decades. In fact my post above references two! Even more notable is that they were sandwiched into a 3 fight period.

So the thread premise is entirely credible.

 

Nothing. The champion was fighting his number one challenger and he was talked into staying in camp for 24 days to make an extra payday. The fight would never have happened otherwise. It was not at the expense of any other challengers

Jack Hurley.

For a whole load of reasons I already told you.

Radmacher was of an age where it was decided he needed to hurry to the championship, he also boxed for free to guarantee Pattersons purse.

beating Pastrano and making NBA #2 for most of the year prior to his challenge. He was taken as a warm up just weeks ahead of a showdown with new #1 Ingo. It was certainly not at the expense of #10 rated Sonny Liston. More the expense of Henry Cooper.

But he had not yet beaten anyone as good as Pastrano or Machen.

Not in real terms. Sonny was 8-0 since his comeback after two years out of boxing.

But it took Liston till 1958 to get number 10 rated because he didn’t fight at all in 1957 and most of 1956. Only so much you can do with 8 fights.

If you look at any other “champion in the making” type challenger (which Sonny definitely was) before the Tyson era, they all had to do more to get that shot. How many contenders did Joe Louis have to beat? Ali? Marciano? Frazier? Holmes? Nobody ever says this about them. Just Liston.

probably only under modern time landscape. But with one title this was not so. Even today how hard is it to get Joshua and Fury in a ring? Seems more excusable if each man can pick up a bogus belt but that’s all. It’s the same now.

 

And you were doing so well.

London was never ranked #1 by the NBA and certainly not for "most of the year prior to his challenge". His win over Pastrano bagged him the #2 spot for 3 glorious months, which came to an end when he lost his British and Commonwealth titles to Henry Cooper, well before he was signed to meet Patterson.

As I've said, Liston was ranked by both the Ring and the NBA by mid 1958.